


All's Fair in Love and Colds

by Saxifactumterritum



Series: Moments universe [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Stargate, Fluff, M/M, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 13:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saxifactumterritum/pseuds/Saxifactumterritum
Summary: John has a cold, Rodney is a busy man





	All's Fair in Love and Colds

Rodney's having a perfectly reasonable anxiety dream about work. It's not a good dream, but it's not bad. It's just him getting fired and yelling at people for being too stupid for words; he likes shouting. 

“Rodney.”

There's a whiny, nasal intrusion on his going away party, but he's having fun verbally dressing-down the USAF brass. 

“Rodney, wake up, I think I'm sick.”

Another intrusion. Rodney looks around but can't see John at the party. Rodney carries on eating his cake. 

“C’mon McKay don't be an ass, I know you're basically awake. Sympathy, please.”

“Nnnn n..nnn,” Rodney says, then adds ‘guh’ and ‘gngg’ for good measure. 

“Do I feel hot to you? I think I'm hot.”

Rodney nods into his pillows. It's not good enough, clearly, because John takes his hand and presses a sweaty forehead to it. 

“Come on, Rodney. Be nice.”

John's poking him, fingers sharp and insistent and pokey. Rodney growls and heaves himself up enough to get his arms around John, like a whale breaching. John laughs, hoarse and a bit wild, Rodney dragging him until he's half under him and it must be hot and uncomfy but he's limp, and snuggles closer, like that's what he wanted. Thankfully. Rodney goes back to sleep, tucking John a little bit closer. 

When he wakes properly for the morning, John's gone, which is normal; John gets up at ‘normal people time’ and runs ‘like a normal person’ and has plenty of time for breakfast and showers ‘like Mr normal’. Rodney doesn't know how to break it to him that most people are regularly late for work, rarely bother with breakfast, even more rarely with exercise. John's a freak, that's just the reality he should embrace. Rodney contemplates John's abnormality over his morning coffee, smiling at the little sticky note he found on his moka pot. Just a scribbled ‘you suck, Rodney’. He has no clue why John's leaving him cross notes but he finds it amusing. He answers the phone absently when it rings. 

“Where the bloody hell are you?!” Carson shrieks in his ear.

Ah. A memory of agreeing to meet Carson for something brunch bubbles up to the surface. He fusses about how important and busy he is for a while before Carson interrupts to ask if he forgot again. 

“Yes?” Rodney says. Another memory bubbles up and pops. “John was ill last night, I slept badly.”

Ha. Take that, Carson. He has a good reason. And that's probably what this note is about, Rodney probably wasn't sympathetic enough. Carson starts clucking and saying things like ‘ach the poor wee laddie’ and asking Rodney questions. Rodney has no idea what was wrong with John so he says yes to a fever, coughing and vomiting, no to sneezing, headache and sore throat. Then he revises that, because if John  _ were  _ coughing and throwing up he'd have a sore throat. He decides John had a headache, too. 

“Migraine, actually,” Rodney says, breezily, enjoying making Carson feel guilty. “He was feeling really bad, so I stayed up. Like a good partner.”

“Hmm. Alright, well you just stay home with him, that's fine. I was going to stop by Ellis Inc to see about renting something, for my proposal. I'm sure someone else there can help, so that's fine. See you soon, Rodney.”

“At John's work? No no no, wait-” 

Carson's already hung up, though. Rodney swears at his phone and finishes his coffee. He hesitates, then pours himself another shot. He rushed to grab his car keys and leaves, he's wearing his pyjama pants and John's Talking Heads shirt. It's got a gaping hole in the armpit and his slippers. That's fine, no one at John's work will care. He drives a bit wildly but has to slow on the approach, Ellis Inc is up a windy gravel lane. The car park is just a square, more of the ugly gravel. The approach to the slightly dilapidated portacabins that make up the office and staff room is nice, though, and the front desk has flowers. Flowers and Amelia Banks, who job shares with Coleman even though their expertise is different. Rodney does not understand the structure of things, it's all weird. John fits right in. 

“He's in the office. Coleman brought in the baby, typhoid Mary got banished from the staff room for the duration,” Amelia says, grinning at Rodney. 

“Huh. Good. If a short Scottish bloke with stupid hair comes in, neither John or I are here. Got it?” 

“Sure.”

He nods and marches through to the back. Sure enough, John's sat hunched over one of the tower PCs, in one of his collared, short sleeve shirts. Rodney smiles, because John looks nice. He ruins it by swearing and thumping the computer, calling it names. 

“What did it do to you?” Rodney asks, amused. John spins in his chair and glares at Rodney. “Never mind, doesn't matter. Carson's coming here, something to do with… I wasn't actually listening but I told him you were sick so he wouldn't get mad I forgot about brunch.”

“For the sixth time?” John asks, face twisting up. “I reminded you this morning.”

“I didn't speak to you this morning. I woke up like twenty minutes ago.”

“You had a five minute conversation. You told me to make my own lunch and to buy milk myself and got mad at me for asking you where you hid the Tylenol,” John says. He looks quite unimpressed. “Then you threw a pillow at me and told me to go shower because I smell, and then I reminded you about Carson and you pretended to be asleep. You faked snored.”

“Oh,” Rodney says. He has no memory of this. 

John nods, pointedly. Rodney tries a smile. He gets an eyeroll for it and John turns to the side to cough into his shoulder. No wonder Amelia called him typhoid Mary, jeeze. Rodney steps away, inching back while John’s not looking. 

“Stop it,” John says, finishing his coughing. 

Rodney tries another smile, but then he hears Carson in the front and he also hears Amelia cheerfully telling Carson John and Rodney are in the office and then he’s walking in, looking thunderous. 

“Rodney!” Carson says, giving Rodney a hurt look. 

“What? I wasn’t lying,” Rodney says. 

Carson shouts for almost five minutes, even tearing up at one point which makes John scoot back to the computer and pretend to be working. Rodney gets annoyed in his turn and soon they’re arguing, and even John coughing and  _ proving  _ he’s sick doesn’t assuage Carson. Something about Rodney saying John had a fever of 104.5. Rodney doesn’t remember claiming that, but he mostly just agreed with Carson this morning, so he might’ve. He still argues against it. 

“Both of you shut up,” John says, and his voice is low and tight and dangerous. They both go silent. “Carson, I really am sick, and Rodney might not remember it accurately but I woke him up three times last night because I was feeling crappy. He really didn’t get a good night’s sleep. He hates brunch, invite him to dinner instead or just come over to ours, then he’ll stop skipping. You’ve known him twenty years, why you ever thought he’d show up to brunch is beyond me.”

“See?” Rodney says, pointing at John, smug. 

“And Rodney,” John says, turning on him, giving him an incredulous look. “Shut  _ up _ . Just apologise! And stop agreeing to go to brunch if you’re not gonna show! Carson, Amelia does bookings, she can help you with whatever it is you want to hire us for. Now, I’ve finally got this piece of crap to spit out my forms, I have a lesson to teach in a helicopter.”

John pushes past them both, walks through to the front, then comes back and glares at them, pointing them both out. They troop through, deflated. Amelia’s sat at the front desk, eyes bright with amusement as John brings them through like badly behaved children. She’s got a baby from somewhere, her leg up, bouncing the tiny bundle. 

“Rodney,” John says, from the door. 

“Uh huh?” Rodney says, looking at the baby. 

“You’re with me,” John says. “Come on.”

“Oh!” Rodney says, following him out.

The air’s cooler outside and the change makes John cough again as they head toward the hanger. Rodney falls into step with him easily, he rests a hand against John’s back until he’s done with the coughing thing, then gives a little rub. 

“What do you need?” he asks. “Other than me to be less of an ass?”

“You’re fine,” John mutters. “Just come back and pick me up? I’ll get done about three thirty, Ellis has agreed to take my later lesson.”

“Okay,” Rodney says. “I feel kind of guilty. I was really a dick this morning?”

“Yeah. You suck,” John says, but he sounds more cheerful about it than he had earlier. “The word you’re looking for is ‘sorry’.”

“Right! Yes, true. I am sorry,” Rodney says, perking up. 

“Pathetic apology accepted.”

It’s a pretty good outcome, all told. Rodney goes back to the office and leans on the desk, teasing Carson about his elaborate proposal plans until he’s got things sorted with Amelia to pay an exorbitant amount of money for John to fly the rainbow and do something or other romantic. Rodney walks him back to his car, still happily explaining why marriage is rubbish and romance all sucks. 

“Rodney, be quiet or I’ll give you a thump,” Carson says.

“Alright. Come for dinner. Not tonight, obviously, but in a few days. She’ll say yes,” Rodney says. “Why you want the stupid marriage thing is beyond me, but she’ll say yes.”

“Thank you,” Carson says, an unspoken  _ finally  _ hanging in the air. 

“Yes, I’m bad at this, you know that,” Rodney says. 

“I’m going home, now,” Carson says, climbing into his tiny Scottish car and slamming the door. 

Rodney’s in a good mood as he heads home as well, he listens to Clara Schumann and when he gets back to his office he solves the USAF’s problems in one go. He’s still deep in his work when his phone rings, shrill and annoying. He ignores it four times, running a few simulations and working on the whiteboard while those run and looking at the original plans sent through from the USAF and laughing at the gaping holes he’s neatly knitting together and-

“What?” he snaps into his phone, picking it up to make it stop. 

“You were going to pick me up,” John says, sounding incensed. Also congested and really hoarse and a bit miserable. Oops. 

“Oh,” Rodney settles on saying.

“I’m here so I might as well take this lesson, please come get me in an hour,” John says. Then his tone switches, less angry and more frustrated. “I can’t drive, Rodney, I feel like crap.”

“And yet you can fly,” Rodney feels the need to point out. Why does he feel the need? Why does he  _ do  _ that?

“I’m teaching a ten year old about instruments,” John hisses, back to very, very angry. “We’re not leaving the ground. Just be here, okay?”

Rodney leaves then and there, not daring to look at his work in case he’s drawn back in. He listens to Talking Heads on the drive back out, and dictates his thoughts as he goes, recording his ideas in case he loses this burst of initiative. He’s pretty certain that this is the solution, and the generals are going to hate it, which is just so fantastic. Rodney loves pissing off the generals. There are three of them and none of them like him. It’s very mutual. He’s still in quite a good mood when he gets back to John’s work. He makes himself at home in the breakroom, steals John’s thermos of good coffee from his locker, and finds an unused notebook and a pen. He’s lost in numbers and patterns, chasing energy input and output, but he notices when John walks in. 

He always notices when John comes into a room, he always did. It drove him to distraction, years and years back when John was flying them around installations and between project bases; he’d usually stop by Rodney’s office, and Rodney would always, always be pulled right out of whatever he was doing. Rodney can picture him; young, hair regulation length back then (in fact shorter, to try and contend with the cowlicks), usually in a flight suit, top half pulled down and tied around his waist. He’d always looked good, leaning provocatively in the doorway, grinning at Rodney. Today he’s not provocative, or grinning, or looking good. He looks damp and his hair’s drooping and he’s still angry. It’s radiating off him along with exhaustion. 

“Shit,” Rodney mutters, getting up. 

John’s bag is on the floor by the lockers, Rodney gathers John’s stuff up and nudges him to sit, going through to the office to get whatever John’s left around. Ellis is there but just nods to Rodney, barely registering him. He finds John’s jumper by the front desk and heads back. John’s rested his head against his arm on the table, he looks like a discarded toy. Rodney perches his butt on the table by John’s elbow and cards through his sweaty hair, longer now. John doesn’t immediately spring to life so Rodney rubs his shoulders, thinking more about when they met. John had been really annoying, always full of enthusiasm for Rodney’s work but all he’d ever said was ‘huh’ or ‘cool’. It took Rodney a while to realise that while John was definitely flirting, John wasn’t really aware of it, and if he wanted anything to happen he’d have to do it himself. He kissed John in the rain, like all the cliches, and it had been wonderful. 

“Come on. I have your jumper, you’re shivering. You just have to sit up and hold your arms out, I’ll wrestle you into it like a toddler,” Rodney says, giving John’s shoulder a squeeze. 

John sits up obediently and holds his arms out, one eyebrow raised in challenge. Fine. Rodney does it methodically; one sleeve, over John’s head, bending his other arm to stuff it through and yanking the jumper down. John’s almost smiling when he’s done. Rodney gets John’s bag over a shoulder and turns, stoops to loop an arm around John’s back, grips his hip. John got hurt, once. Really hurt. Rodney hadn’t known for almost a week and then Holland forged some stuff and Rodney pretended to be Dave until he could bring John away from the hospital. In those weeks after, he’d practically been able to carry John, he’d been that light. Now he’s not light, but it’s a familiar kind of weight.

“I love how strong you are,” John mumbles, tucking his hand into Rodney’s belt to hold on. 

Rodney ignores Amelia’s sniggers as he guides John out. If she thinks she can make him embarrassed she clearly has no idea about what his students are like. They shamble to the car, Rodney pours John into the passenger seat and closes the door so he can droop against the window and go to sleep. He tucks his jacket around John and does his belt, once he’s in the car. They listen to Johnny Cash on the way home, Rodney hopes it’ll permeate John’s dreams and cheer him up, put him in a better mood. They sit in the car for a while, once Rodney’s parked; John’s asleep and seems content, the music’s fine, Rodney gets his notepad and goes back to work. 

“Rodney?” John mumbles, about half an hour later. 

“Mmm? Busy,” Rodney says. 

“Why’re we still in the car?”

“Um,” Rodney looks up and then around, then shrugs. John’s blinking at him, face pale. He doesn’t look  _ so  _ bad, just kind of… sick. “I didn’t want to wake you, you were grumpy.”

“Well, I’m gonna be a lot more grumpy when we discover I’ve set like this and can’t get unstuck to get out the car,” John says. He doesn’t sound grumpy, just tired and amused. “C’mon. Get me out of here, make me soup or something.”

“I’m not a housewife,” Rodney grumbles, gathering his things, “I’m not serving you,” he gets out and juggles his stuff with John’s bag from the back seat, “I’m not making soup. I don’t think I even can make soup,” he says, walking around to the other side, “what the hell goes in soup?” he pops John’s door, “do you even like soup?”

John looks up at him, shifts gingerly, then holds out an arm. Rodney levers him out of the car ignoring the groans and hisses and the gross pop when John stretches out his back and shoulders. The quiet huff of actual pain he pays attention to, moving his hold so he’s got a better grip, taking more or John’s weight as they move to the front door. He regrets, now, leaving John to sleep in the car. He hauls him through to the bedroom, dropping everything (except his phone and notebook, those he keeps in his back pocket). 

“Just lie there,” he says, putting John on the bed. “The things I do for you, honestly. There’s no one else whose shoes I’d take off for them. Next time Carson goes all dewy-eyed about marrying Cadman, I mean, I’ve already won. I took your boots off for you, once. That’s  _ real  _ commitment.”

“I’ll write it across the sky,” John slurs, laughing, coughing lightly. “‘He took my shoes off for me’.”

“If you really do it, I’ll leave you. Go back to Canada, become rich and famous and tell all the papers ‘ex? What ex? Oh, you mean Jean. Nah, barely remember him… the helicopter incident? Hmm?’” Rodney has no idea what he’s talking about. He sits on the edge of the bed and tips John, getting his pants undone and shoving him up the matress and onto his front, his pants sliding off. He pulls them the rest of the way and sits by John’s hip. “Tell me what hurts, to avoid there.”

“Shoulder. Don’t touch my shoulder,” John says, face buried in a pillow. 

Rodney runs his hand lightly over the bad shoulder and John swears at him before subsiding. Rodney presses a kiss there, too, moving John so he’s going to be more comfortable. He finds massages boring, giving and receiving, but he spreads his notebook out over John’s bad shoulder, sets up his phone for dictation, and goes over some of his work. John’s breathing gets slower and deeper as Rodney talks to himself, working the tension out of John’s muscles, losing himself in both the work and John’s body. 

“Hey, are you alright? Really?” Rodney asks, getting to the end of his notes, John limp and relaxed and almost sleeping again. 

“Yeah. It’s just a cold,” John says. “Thanks. For coming to get me, and for that. Move your stuff, I’m not a desk.”

Rodney picks up his phone and notebook and John rolls over, sitting up. He’s got pillow creases on one cheek and his eyes are half shut, his cheeks and nose are a bit pink, and he’s breathing through his mouth. 

“Sorry I forgot, earlier,” Rodney says. “Got an idea, forgot to set an alarm.”

“‘s’okay. I should’ve called, reminded you,” John says. “I fell asleep.”

“At work? What did Ellis say?”

“He didn’t know. It was after my lesson, I sat down for five minutes on that couch Dusty has out back, and then, before I knew it, I was waking up,” John says. “What about soup, huh?”

“I’m not making you soup! I’m a busy man! I have work to do,” Rodney says, glaring. John frowns and coughs pathetically at him. “No.”

“Ok. Can we order pizza, then?” John says, turning away to cough for real, hacking into his elbow until his face is pink with exertion. 

“Jesus. If you get me sick I’m gonna be pissed,” Rodney says, bringing up the Italian place’s number on his phone and calling. 

John follows Rodney into the office while they’re waiting for the pizza to arrive, lying on his back on the floor while Rodney works. It’s distracting, listening to him breathing, seeing him always, his eyes heavy with tiredness. John used to lie on Rodney’s office couch, bored waiting for someone he needed to fly back or forth. Rodney’s always thought John did it because it annoyed Rodney to have him sprawled there, all loose-limbs and big grin. Maybe he did it because he liked being with Rodney, though. Liked his company, his attention. Rodney realises he’s just staring at John, completely forgetting what he’s doing, and John’s staring back. 

“Say it?” John says, sitting up. 

“I love you,” Rodney says. He frowns, crouching by John. “God knows why, you’re weird. But I do, honestly, stupidly.”

“Good,” John says, pulling Rodney in for a kiss. Rodney twists away just in time; John coughs instead, turning his head. 

“I’m done for today, you’ve distracted me,” Rodney says, getting up and putting things away, shutting his computers down. John gets off the floor on his own, clearly feeling less stiff and achy at least. “Pizza, TV, bed?”

“Skip the TV, you’ll be lucky if I stay awake for the pizza even,” John says, yawning and stretching. He’s still holding his bad shoulder oddly and doesn’t stretch that side properly. 

“How about pizza and TV  _ in  _ bed?” Rodney says, holding John’s waist, kissing his cheek and temple. 

“Mm. No, no food in bed, you get crumbs everywhere,” John says. “Pizza, then TV in bed. You can pick the movie, I’ll probably just fall asleep anyway.”

Rodney hums, swaying them a bit. John laughs and coughs and asks if they’re dancing then droops against Rodney’s shoulder, arms around his waist and shoulder, draped over Rodney like he’s soft furnishings. Rodney decides that for now he doesn’t mind. Last time John was sick he’d had a fever and he’d been weirdly clingy, just wanting Rodney close. Rodney feels the back of his neck, pushes him away enough to feel his chest. 

“What’re you doing?” John asks. 

“Seeing if you have a fever. Maybe, a little bit,” Rodney decides. 

“Pizza, bed,” John says, leaning into Rodney’s hand, head getting against Rodney’s shoulder again. 

Rodney untangles his arm from between them and wraps it around John instead, holds onto him. Really not averse to just hugging for a while. He tells John about how awesome his intellect is for cracking his problem and how stupid the air force are and how mad the brass are gonna be about this, which nicely fills the time until the pizza’s delivered. 


End file.
